Resilience is an essential skill for young people to learn before taking on some of life’s hardships. Being resilient in times of struggle will give you the ability to bounce back from times of great stress or discomfort mentally and emotionally.
Read on to discover more about the meaning of resilience and why it is important for students. We will discuss the ten reasons why resilience is an important characteristic for students to have and what they can do to learn how to become more resilient in life.
What Does Resilience Mean for Students?
Resilience means that a student has the ability to overcome obstacles that may be in their way, even if they are difficult ones. Reliance is developed over time and does not typically come naturally to us. Resilience must be learned through experience. Students often face hardships and changes throughout their adolescence and early years, and it is key for them to learn resilience in order to make it.
How students learn to adjust to the ever-changing landscape of their academic and personal lives will directly determine how they do so for the rest of their lives. Learning resilience from a young age will give you the tools needed to be resilient throughout your life. Resilience does not mean that students will experience fewer struggles but means that they will better know how to handle struggles and stressful situations when they come along.
Why Is Resilience Important for Students?
Students can experience some mental and emotional trauma even in their younger years, and building resilience is a sure way to help them get through it. Students experience consistent physical and mental growth with school and extracurricular activities and develop new and improved social skills and the skills to be resilient daily.
Becoming resilient will give students the ability to take on the new and frightening challenges they may be experiencing daily. Resilient students will grow and learn in every situation, even if it is a setback. Developing resilience in a student’s younger years is key to helping them live a fulfilled and healthy life.
Let’s look at some of the reasons why developing resilience is important for students and what they can do each day to become more resilient. Here are the ten reasons why developing resilience is important for students.
Resilience Helps Students Cope with Life’s Obstacles
Life throws us obstacles at every twist and turn, and learning to be resilient through it all will help students learn how to cope in a healthy manner. Resilience can give students the strength needed to overcome hardships in their lives. Resilience will let students work with their skills and strengths in life to overcome challenges and effectively problem solve.
Those students that lack resilience may turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms like:
- Negative self-talk
- Aggression
- Substance Abuse
- Smoking
These unhealthy coping mechanisms will not only have an effect on other areas of a student’s life, but they will also have an effect on their mental and physical health. Developing healthy coping mechanisms like meditation during stress and daily exercise will help students remain resilient and able to cope with any obstacles that come along.
Learning Resilience Helps Students Bounce Back
Students that learn to be resilient through adversity will be able to more healthily cope with what life gives them. Being able to cope with challenges in a healthy way is not the only obstacle that being resilient can help you overcome. Students that learn to be resilient will be able to bounce back after a traumatic experience in life.
The ability to bounce back quickly from a setback is one of the best things that being resilient can offer a person. Rather than sinking into a depression that can deeply affect physical and emotional health, resilience will help students to bounce back to normal life and a normal headspace more quickly.
Resilience Helps Students Learn to Pay It Forward
Resilient students are able to bounce back more easily after hardship and better process the challenges they are experiencing but being resilient also helps them pay it forward. Resilience gives a student the desire to do things in return and spread gratitude. Paying it forward is one way to show kindness and appreciation for those around them at any given time.
Paying it forward is the act of doing something kind for a stranger. Students with resilience have more room to give back without being asked. Lack of resilience can lead to a depressing view of life and force us to think that there is no good in the world. Whether this means helping another peer by tutoring them in a subject they are not familiar with or helping a stranger with a task they find difficult, paying it forward will help build resilience and see the good that there is in life.
Learning Resilience Helps Students Learn to Process Emotions
Emotional resilience refers to a person’s ability to adapt to stressful situations in life without overreacting or panicking. Students with emotional resilience can handle any stressors thrown at them by life and react in a calm and controlled manner. Emotional resilience can help students learn how to process other emotions that may come up in life.
Emotional resilience in a student’s early years can lead to emotional intelligence later on down the road. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage emotions in positive ways during stressful situations. In addition, emotional intelligence will lead to a student developing the ability to empathize with their peers and more easily remedy any conflict.
Resilience Will Help Students Achieve Academic Success
Resilience is something that has a big influence on academic performance. That is because emotional resilience and the ability to overcome struggle tie directly to a student’s ability to perform well academically. The job market and academic structure are both competitive areas, and students must show resilience to be able to make it through while remaining hopeful and positive.
Students will experience setbacks in many academic settings, and whether it is a subject they are not proficient at or a peer they do not see eye-to-eye with, students must remain resilient to make it through these challenges. If they become discouraged or lack resilience, they may not be able to bounce back from these setbacks as quickly. Academia can be competitive and even those that are not competitive by nature may feel the weight of the pressure normally on students.
The job market is an entirely different struggle for students fresh out of the world of academia. Job markets can be even more competitive than what students experience in school, and when they get to the position in life to enter the job market, they will need resilience. They may experience rejection more than they are used to, and without resilience, they may experience a form of depression that could hinder their success.
Resilience Will Lower Absences Caused by Illness
Stress can be extremely hard on the mind and body, and those that lack the proper ways to cope with chronic stress could see one or more physical illnesses due to the effect stress can have on the body. Physical illness can present itself in many ways when the body is experiencing chronic stress, and illness can directly affect a student’s ability to be present at school. Physical illnesses that come along with chronic stress include:
- High blood pressure
- A weaker immune system
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Insomnia
- Heart Disease
Students that develop resilience can avoid the potential risk of physical illness by learning to cope with the stress that comes with life. Physical illness may warrant absences that will take away from a student’s academic success. Along with the development of resilience, students should practice some calming techniques like meditation. We will cover how to develop resilience through practice a little later.
Learning Resilience Reduces Risk-Taking Behaviors
Risk-taking behaviors may seem less appealing and more of an unhealthy coping mechanism to students that have developed resilience. Resilient students are also less likely to engage in these behaviors because of peer pressure. Some risk-taking behaviors that resilient students are likely to avoid include:
- Unprotected Sexual Activity
- Illegal Substance Use
- Smoking
- Truancy
- Dangerous Driving
Resilient students are likely to avoid these behaviors because they have already developed healthy ways to cope and can clearly see the negative side effects of these behaviors. Unhealthy coping mechanisms can be destructive to academic success and a student’s physical safety and health. A lack of resilience will mask the consequences of these unhealthy mechanisms.
Resilience Will Increase a Students Participation In The Community
Resilient students are more likely to participate in community activities and family gatherings. Students that have developed resilience are more likely to have a support system in place that they can lean on. Support systems generally consist of those close to the student that they can rely on for support. Support systems can encourage students to become involved in extracurricular activities or activities within a community.
Having these support systems in place gives the student more of an opportunity to have a group of people that love and support them to actively participate in community activities with. Reliance comes with a sense of community, and giving back to the community is a sign of someone who has developed resilience in life. A sign that students have developed resilience is active community involvement and an active support system.
Resilience Will Improve a Student’s Mental Health
We have spoken about the ramifications that chronic stress can have on the body, but this type of stress can also dramatically impact a student’s mental health. Mental illness due to chronic stress can oftentimes be more debilitating than physical illness. Lack of resilience can lead to a major impact on the mental health of students. Some mental health issues that can come about due to chronic stress include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Substance Use Problems
- Sleep Problems
- Insomnia
- Trouble Learning and Retaining Information
These mental health conditions can be crippling, especially for students. Learning to be resilient can help mediate any of these mental health issues, though it isn’t the ultimate solution. Good mental health is a constant battle and must always be closely monitored. Resilience will play its part in giving you the coping mechanisms to avoid these issues better.
Resilience Lowers the Rate of Mortality Among Young People
The physical, social, and mental characteristics of resilience play a vital role in increasing the longevity of life and decreasing the mortality rate among adults. Developing resilience as a student can follow you into adulthood and older age. Some of the key characteristics that adults who have developed resilience earlier in life include:
| Physical Characteristics | Mental Characteristics | Social Characteristics |
| Optimized Mobility | Displaying Gratitude | Involved In Community |
| Fewer Instances of Joint and Muscle Pain | Consistent Feelings of Happiness | Close To Family And Friends |
| Physically Aging Well | Positivity and Hopefulness | Feels A Sense Of Purpose |
| Overall Good Physical Health | Emotional Intelligence | Has Strong, Positive Relationships |
These examples are some of many that show how developing resilience as a student will lower the mortality rate and increase the longevity of life well into your adult years. These characteristics have followed those that developed resistance in their early years and helped them through their lives. Students that develop resilience at a young age will typically benefit from these characteristics later on in life.
How To Become More Resilient
Learning how to be more resilient will come with a variety of advantages in life. From improved physical and mental health to the ability to build and keep strong relationships, learning to be resilient in life can only help students along their journey. Here are a few tips and everyday practices to help you learn how to become more resilient.
Learn From Experience
Use what you have learned in your past to improve upon the way you handle conflict and stress.
Think about how you would like your future self to handle these hardships and implement changes that can help you achieve those goals.
Create A Support System To Lean On
Build strong relationships with your friends and family so that you have someone in your corner to help when you need it most. Always be transparent with the relationships you are building and do so honestly and with integrity. Use your support system to establish additional connections. Your support system can be as big or as small as you decide, but it is extremely important to have one.
Keep A Positive And Hopeful Outlook On Life
No matter what life throws your way, attempt to look at the bright side of things. Always find something in your life that you appreciate and focus on that. This is not to say that you cannot struggle or express that you are struggling. Just don’t dwell on the negatives that life may present to you. Always remain joyful and positive and be there for your support system.
Take Care of Yourself
Always take care of your mental and physical health. Practice regular self-care and do the things that bring you joy. Always take the time to meditate or express gratitude each day. Stay well-rested and do the things in life that make you the happiest.
Don’t Ignore Your Problems
Do not ignore your problems or stressful situations that come along, instead, attack them proactively and creatively solve them. Give yourself the time that you need to recover and know that your situation will get better with time. Ignoring your problems will only make them worse, so avoid it at all costs.
Support Others as They Support You
A great sign of developing resilience is the ability for a student to support those around them just as they are supported. Students should implement this as a daily practice in their lives.
Students, especially in their younger years, need to learn to be resilient more than anyone else. To help students build resilience, encourage them to make every day a meaningful day. Please show your appreciation for them and encourage them to do the same for others. Students should be taught to always tackle their problems head-on and give themselves time to recover from stressful situations.
Conclusion
These ten reasons why it is important for students to develop resilience are necessary to help them in their journey to adulthood. Developing resilience is key for students to enjoy their lives. Developing resilience will help students cope with life’s stress in healthy and productive ways. Students that learn to be resilient will be able to bounce back from rejection and discomfort much easier than those that lack resilience and will be more likely to be in better physical health.
Learning resilience will lead students to a better sense of emotional intelligence and will help them interact with their peers in healthy ways. Resilient students will often experience fewer absences in academic settings because of the benefits of physical and mental health that come with resilience. Students that develop resilience in their early years may find that they experience benefits well into adulthood.
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